Warm Office

Okay, it is spring, and the snow is severely reduced - though there is another winter storm trying to get going for the weekend, it sounds like it will melt on impact, so should just be wet and not too annoying.

But last night, after attending an evening event, I came home and immediately commented that the house felt a bit cool. The thermostat indicated that it was indeed one degree low. (I know, I'm some sort of crazy human thermometer). I noted that the furnace seemed to be running it's ventor, but not heating, so I went down to look and quickly realized that the hot surface igniter was not glowing.

ASIDE: Okay - Google probably led you here based on that last phrase, you're probably looking for a solution to a furnace problem. Here's another bait phrase: York Stellar. That's the brand of my furnace - not a particularly stellar unit. Read on, and you'll see that I was able to fix it. Just an ancillary benefit to being a research scientist and indeed, a people manager. Sure, I lost my screwdriver for about 10minutes, but hey, I got it done.

Anyway, back to the story, I was able to spark up the furnace with a candle-lighter - I know - "never try to light a furnace by hand" and I would echo that. Particularly true if you are totally in the dark and are unaware of how the gas valve works on the furnace, or unaware of the cycle of operation. But if you are thoroughly trained in the minutiae of furnace operation through years of impromptu repairs, you can do it pretty easily and know how to do so safely. So I warmed the house up nicely before bed, then turned it off, and it still wasn't too bad by the time we got up.

Someone clearly screwed up at the igniter factory - those things are supposed to die on a Saturday evening in February - thereby ensuring that you can't get a replacement for about 36 hours. I managed to get one first thing this morning when the parts place conveniently about a 2minute drive from my place, opened up. For $60 it was pretty painless. I'm sure it would have been a good $400 to call someone. Whew.

So let's say I'm up $340. I think we need to go out for a nice meal tonight.

On the work front in the field of, er, Oceanography, our research group's big invention project is progressing. A bunch of ideas were submitted and we all get to vote now. The problem is that of the 10's of proposals submitted several of them are essentially the same. So, which one do you vote for? If the perpetrators of the project were thinking, they would say "all these are treated as one project" and thus get a better sense of the interest. Hopefully they will combine the votes for those. Then again, if so many people come up with the same "lofty" idea, it might not be that original. I mean there are probably other big multinational oceanography firms that are aware of that as a big opportunity.

We all get five votes - we'll see where this leads us - and I'll give you, dear reader, some sense of the outcome as it comes together. How much do you want to bet it gets messed up in the final stages, and turns into a mish-mash of weak ideas and a "designed by committee" lame-ass project. Or maybe something really cool and risk taking. Yeah.